Sunday, January 12, 2014

7 ways I don't hate my job.... even though almost everyone else seems to find it hateable.

     So I work a low level retail job. It's the kind of job where a majority of my coworkers like to complain about how crappy it is, which is only partially explained by human nature. I try to keep my head up, and focus on positive things, because let's face it... I'm super negative about certain things, I may as well attempt to stay positive in the areas where it doesn't feel impossible. I was actually rather excited closer to when I started.
   But now I'm six months in. Those in leadership seem to trust me enough to try to have me running everywhere, so I feel like I'm getting nothing done because my efforts are spread quite thin. I'm growing weary, and I'm not sure if it's just the daily grind, or frustration with hours (I get very few), or just because I've risen enough within the lower ranks to feel pressure. But regardless. THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M HERE FOR.
   
      Reason #1 that my shitty retail job isn't worthless: I get to help people. Okay, I know that this is cheesy as all hell, but honestly... it feels good to be able to help customers. Especially when I'm doing something beyond just daily tasks. I love helping people figure things out. I know it may not be anything significant most of the time, but nonetheless, it's nice to feel helpful.
     It's also nice helping my coworkers, although that's relatively rare. These are the people I work for though, really. I don't care about whoever is getting the money from being stupidly stingy about "human resources." I care about customers who are at least decent, and I care about some of my coworkers not having to be stressed.

      Reason # 2: Customers occasionally teach me things... or are at least interesting. I'm not much of a crafty person, but I want to be, which makes talking to people who are into those things rather awesome at times. Just small talk, naturally, but occasionally nice things come out of it. Ideas, or learning a little more about fabric and such, or sometimes it's just fun to hear what they're doing.

      Reaon #3: It's good practice. This one is more personal. I'm very shy, to the point that people often think I'm just antisocial. Occasionally I feel like I'm just incapable of human interaction, and I was rather scared going into this job that I was going to fail miserably because how can I give good customer service when I can't even properly interact with people? So I got a little boost of confidence from the fact that, well, I didn't fail. I'm probably not the best still, but I do get practice in a sense. I have to interact with quite a few people every time I go to work... which isn't a bad thing for getting better at it.
     It's also good acting practice, in the sense that I have to fake being happy-ish even though I've often not. Especially during these past few months, I've come to understand a little better how faking a decent mood is not only not impossible for me, but can in fact help my mood (it's worth noting, however, that reminders of this can still be rather annoying).

    Reason #4: There are probably worse things for my health than lifting boxes and running all over the place. It'd still be good to get back into power lifting and stuff like that, but this can't hurt.

   Reason #5: It's helped keep me relatively sane. Only getting to talk to people at work sucks, but it's a lot better than not talking to anyone at all. This is important when you're too depressed and self-loathing to really reach out and make friends, and the few friends you have are busy or just out of touch for months and you are not really so extreme an introvert that being totally alone is considered a good thing.

  Reason #6: I do get paid. It's probably less than I deserve, certainly less than I'd like, but it's still something in any case. It's also job experience, with putting up with shit if nothing else valuable.

   Reason #7: Variety. This is more a specific aspect... They are making me run around everywhere, I never really know what I'm gonna do in a given day, but variety is fun. I dunno, I think it beats what I had at my last job where it was the same routine every night.

   So that's what I've got for now. It's not a good job, I have no intention of staying there longer than I need to. But for now, I'm there. May as well pay attention to the bright side, right? :)

1 comment:

  1. on reason no. 3 - that's exactly how I climb out of my hole. fake it till you make it yo.

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